What Global Leadership Means
Admiral Bobby Inman, veteran of the CIA and NSA and a UT alumnus, forecasts the global challenges for business and the economy
By Emily Hernandez
With more than 30 years serving in the Navy and leadership roles in the CIA and National Security Agency, Admiral Bobby Inman said if he could run the country for the next two years, he would ensure that the U.S. was involved globally as much as possible to assure our allies that we still are a reliable partner.
When the country was coming out of the Great Depression, he explained, “the end result was with the U.S. sitting on the sidelines not getting involved, and we ended up in a world war. If we don’t engage and try to help manage and maintain a peaceful world, then our kids or grandkids are likely to find themselves back in a pretty brutal fight.”
In a Texas McCombs Presents virtual event entitled “Global Hot Spots: Threats, Challenges, and Opportunities,” Inman spoke on July 22 on topics ranging from coronavirus challenges to cyber threats. He was interviewed by McCombs Distinguished Senior Lecturer John Doggett.
Inman graduated from UT Austin in 1950 and served in the U.S. Navy from 1951 until 1982, retiring with the rank of four-star admiral. He was the head of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the deputy director of the CIA. He later became a successful technology venture capitalist, and has twice served as interim dean of UT’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, where he is currently the LBJ Centennial Chair for National Policy.
Inman said the current U.S. administration is sending signals to allies across the world that the U.S. is withdrawing from global leadership. As a result, he said, our allies are becoming concerned that the U.S. will not be a reliable ally should rival countries such as China and Russia make more aggressive moves to interfere in the affairs of other countries.
“Business is still active, but all the signals from the government are withdrawal,” Inman said. “It’s left them [our allies] all unsure. If the U.S. isn’t going to play a role of leadership, then who?”
“The stability — a big word for me — created by economic activity by the NATO alliance and alliances in the Pacific, have an awful lot to do with not only booming economies, but the availability (of goods) to people who are just above the poverty line.”
The U.S. government last month shut down the Chinese Consulate in Houston over accusations of stealing trade secrets and scientific research, which the Chinese government denies. The Chinese government retaliated by shutting down the U.S. Consulate in Chendu, China.
China poses the largest cyber threat to the U.S. in terms of industrial espionage, stealing secrets that help their own economy, Inman said. However, Russian interference is the most sophisticated cyber threat facing the U.S. Russia has a long history of meddling in other countries’ economies, elections, and even provoking violence, he said.
“It’s continued all the way back to Stalin,” Inman said. “I was dazzled by the speed with which (Russia) recognized the opportunities that social media offered. And we now know pretty clearly not just the interference in the 2016 election, but their interference in violence — at Ferguson sending different messages, get the far left out, get the far right out, get them to fight.”
Inman said he was encouraged by a recent announcement from the current NSA director warning anyone who tried to interfere with the country’s November election that the government would respond offensively.
“We have to recognize our vulnerabilities — the degree to which we rely on satellites for surveillance and for communications, so many other things that are vulnerable to cyber interruption,” Inman said.
“When I see probing of the U.S. air control system or America’s electric grid, I wonder, is that a foreign state looking for what they might do? The U.S. as the largest economy also may have the largest series of vulnerabilities for cyber assault and cyber theft.”
However, cyber threats are not the only challenge the U.S. is facing. While other countries such as South Korea and Vietnam immediately locked down their economies and mandated their citizens to stay home, the U.S. did not, Inman said.
“The public in all those cases, was attuned to all collectively responding, all going into lockdown,” Inman said. “The sort of surprising, disappointing factor for me in this country is the significant number of people who have ignored social distancing and face masks as an infringement on their inherent rights. I don’t think they have an inherent right to potentially expose me to COVID-19.”
Inman said he was previously optimistic that the U.S. could get COVID-19 under control this summer and the economy could bounce back by August, but at this point, he is not so sure.
“I’m much more pessimistic as the search for a vaccine goes on, that unless there is a significant change in the behavior of 99% of the U.S. population,” Inman said. “It could be three or four years now. And if you go that long, the damage to the economy, we know looking back at the ’30s model, you’ll be feeling it for a decade.”
